Reports from the Trial against "National Socialist Underground" Accused from the Perspective of the Private Accessory Prosecution

16 February 2016

On the criminal scene surrounding the Jena Nazi scene: „The only aim of arming ourselves was to stop the advance of gangs of foreigners”

Today the court only heard one witness, who from 1992 to 2000 had been member of an organized gang of criminals in Jena, according to him “one of the leading gangs in Thuringia” and active in dealing with drugs and guns, prostitution etc. There is evidence that they had contacts to, on the one hand, Böhnhardt, Mundlos, Wohlleben and Schultze, on the other hand to Enrico Theile and Hans Ulrich Müller, who according to the indictment were part of the chain of custody of the Ceska pistol used by the NSU. The presiding judge has summoned several members of the group in order to find out more about the chain of custody of the gun and in order to exclude the possibility of other avenues for buying guns.

Like many before him, this witness was unwilling to remember facts that could incriminate the accused, while at the same time reporting at length on irrelevant issues, above all his earlier crimes, it seemed like he simply made up part of his testimony. When the presiding judge began to pressure him for more detailed statements, he refused to answer. His testimony was interrupted for today, the court will now decide whether to appoint a lawyer for him. The testimony of two more members of the gang, which was planned for tomorrow, has accordingly been postponed.

In the following, we will document some statements by the witness – partially verbatim – which give a glimpse into the situation in Jena in the 1990s and into the self-perception of the mixed scene of Neonazis and organized criminals:

I am sure that some of what I will say about the guns owned by the gang will not be to everybody’s liking.

From 1996 to 2000, the center of our activities was Jena. Then all the other gangs appeared, Chechens, Turks and who knows where they all came from. That’s why we decided to arm ourselves. […] I already said to the prosecution: The only aim of arming ourselves was to stop the advance of gangs of foreigners. We had several depots of guns.

We discussed arming the right-wing scene in Jena. They could have supported us in stopping that. When we went into prison, it was easy to see the results, there were 8 deaths because the foreigners had mixed their drugs with rat poison and whatever. Now the market is ruled by Romanians, Turks etc. – the way they treat their girls…

I cannot answer your questions concerning contacts of Ron and Gil. Why should I do that, so that I go home and get a bullet to the head? If you ask me about this, I will invoke my right to refuse to answer questions.

The testimony of this witness will continue soon – it is to be expected that he will not be granted a right to refuse to answer all questions. It is to be expected that the questioning of other members of the group will prove similarly difficult, possibly the court will also have to hear police officers who had questioned them.

The questioning today, like other evidence before, has not raised any doubts concerning the chain of custody of the NSU’s Ceska pistol from Switzerland to the scene shop “Madley’s” in Jena via Schultze and Wohlleben to Zschäpe, Mundlos and Böhnhardt, as it has been confirmed by several witnesses and accused Schultze, quite the contrary. It is not quite clear why the presiding judge is devoting a lot of time to these extensive testimonies.